To protect against unauthorized copying and use of software applications, many software vendors utilize some form of product activation procedure. In general, product activation (sometimes referred to as software activation) involves a procedure for verifying the authenticity of a software product, and ensuring that the software product is used within the scope of its end-user license agreement (EULA). In a typical product activation procedure, when an installed software application is executed for the first time, the software application performs a license verification procedure to determine whether it has been properly licensed and activated. If not, a user is typically prompted to enter some product activation information that is associated with a license, such as a serial number or product key. The product activation information, which is often referred to as license information (e.g., serial number or product key), is communicated along with a machine signature that identifies the machine on which the software has been installed to a backend license server. The backend license server verifies that the received license information corresponds with license information stored at the license server, and then generates a record in a license database to indicate that the software application has been installed and activated on the particular machine identified by the machine signature. Requiring an end-user to input license information in order to activate a software application is an inconvenience to the end-user. Entering a long alphanumeric string is both time consuming and prone to user error, often resulting in frustration for the end-user.